Winter Indoor Gardening Ideas, Part 1

Hello & welcome if this is your first visit. Welcome back if you've stopped by before!

In addition to growing delicious sprouts for your salads, there are lots of other indoor gardening projects you can work on over the winter months. One of the things I've really enjoyed over the years is "forcing" spring flowering bulbs to bloom inside the house much earlier than they would if outside in a flower bed.

This picture above was taken in bright sun on January 31, 2010. I took the planter box outside for the day and placed it at the kitchen window.

 Many of the "big box" stores display tulip, daffodil, hyacinth and other spring flowering bulbs in late summer for fall planting. By mid to late October, it's time for them to clear space for the holiday season and the bulbs are reduced in price for quick sale. I look for bags of bulbs at least 50% of the original retail price. Leave the bulbs in their bag or box. Put them in a corner of your refrigerator. Keep the bulbs in the refrigerator for six to eight weeks.  Have one of your outside garden planter boxes filled with soil and ready for the bulbs. Take the bulbs out of the refrigerator in late December or January and plant them about 75% down in the box. Plant with the pointed end of the bulb up. It doesn't matter if a little of it is above the soil line. Put the box in the sunniest place in your house and put them outside on bright days when you know the temperatures are not going to go below 40 f.  Keep the soil moist, but not wet. You don't want your bulbs to rot. If conditions are right, your bulbs will sprout, grow and bloom in four to six weeks.

WARNING: Many plants are poisonous for cats, dogs and kids. Daffodils are one of those plants. Use great caution if you have pets or small children in the house who might be prone to trying to eat them.

Next: Winter Indoor Gardening Ideas, Part 2

The Past 2 Weeks!

Over the past two weeks here in Lancaster, we've had temperatures in the 70's and temperatures in the teens. We've had sunny skies, cloudy days, rain and snow. There have been calm winds and there have been days with wind gusts in the 50 mph range. In spite of all that wildness

the crocus have popped up

and so have the hyacinths. Mother nature is full of surprises, but also unfailingly steady!

Moving Towards Spring!

Hello! And thanks for stopping by. What a pleasure it was to see some sun early today! 

My February cleanup continues. Today's chore was pruning the raspberry bushes. The canes of the bush produce berries only once, but the plant produces next year's canes simultaneously as the growing season proceeds. The mound of debris on the ground is the pile of last year's dead canes. This patch of six plants produced 9 1/2 pounds of deliciously sweet berries last year!

Flocks of geese have been moving north over Lancaster during the week...another sure sign of spring. This group is moving a little toward the west as well, probably headed for lunch on the Susquehanna River flats.


Follow-up: With sun coming through the windows for the first time this week, I moved the sprout jars into the sun to give them a boost on getting green.

 The "Ancient Eastern" blend in the green capped jar is growing nicely. It should be ready in another day or two.

The yellow capped jar is alfalfa.  This jar has three tablespoons of seed. The 2 tbs. jar lasted less time than I had figured.

Time to get back outside, soak up some vitamin D and do more garden prep. I'll be back soon with those indoor winter garden ideas I mentioned a few days ago.

A New Meaning for "Kitchen Garden"

The term "kitchen garden" has been in common English language use since about 1570, just a few years after William Shakespeare was born. It generally refers to a plot fairly close to the home that is used to grow vegetables for the family's immediate use, particularly on farms. It's wider use today includes the urban garden patch such as ours which is less than 100 feet from our kitchen door. But, I've found that we can have at least a small kitchen garden inside our kitchen during the winter months, too.

Lois always likes to put fresh "sprouts" on her salads.  Several years ago, I ordered sprouting seeds from a January gardening catalog. Some of your local organic food stores may carry them, too. The selection was huge - just about any kind of edible sprout you could imagine. We tried broccoli (ugh) and a few others that were much stronger than we wanted. Alfalfa sprouts are mild and sweet, and, I believe they are the ones you see most frequently in your store's produce department.

Getting started with growing your own sprouts is quite simple. You can buy sprouting trays and lots of other stuff, but a simple wide mouth quart jar with a plastic "screen" lid is the easiest when you first get started.

If your seeds are very small, as the alfalfa seeds are, you will start with the yellow screen lid. Place two tablespoons of seeds in the jar. Cover the seeds with a few inches of water and stand it upright.  Wrap a paper towel around the jar too keep it dark and let it stand over night (about 12 hours). In the morning, remove the paper towel and pour off the water through the lid.  Run clean water over the seeds and drain the water again.  As you drain this second time, tilt the jar on its side and spread the seeds along the length of the jar. Wrap the towel back around the jar and lay it flat on its side (not standing upright).

Repeat this process at least twice during the course of each day. On day three, you should begin to see white areas on the seeds. Continue with the rinse and drain process, but leave the towel off now. Your sprouts should be getting long and green over about six days.

As the seeds grow into sprouts, you can change the filter screen to the green one. This will allow some of the seed hulls to wash out as you rinse. The sprouts may be matted together somewhat, but can be fluffed up as you rinse them the last time and wash out some or all of the seed hulls before storing in the refrigerator for use. The sprouts in the above picture are in day four. They will continue to grow larger the longer you leave them in the jar and continue to rinse. I wouldn't push them past seven days or the may begin to get bitter.

I'm just starting "Ancient Eastern Mix" (shown above) sprouts for the first time. These seeds are much larger than the alfalfa seeds. I'll update their progress and report on how they taste in a few days. I'll also add some of the other "winter" garden things I like to have in our house.

TWENTY-FOUR DAYS 'TIL SPRING!

Bring Some of Your Garden in for the Winter!

One of the things that makes winter a little brighter for me is to bring some of the garden into the house in the fall.

For many years, I suffered from a seasonal affective disorder (SAD). November would roll around, daylight savings time would end and, for me, it was as if someone turned off all the lights. I'd get up in the morning in the dark, work eight hours in an office with no windows, and drive home in the dark. I became depressed. Finally, I brought it up with the family doctor and he prescribed an anti-depressant. That helped to some extent. But other things helped, too.

 I read on several occasions that geraniums could spend the winter in the house or a garage and be re-planted the following spring. Simply hang the plants upside down in a dark room or unlit garage until spring. I tried this on several occasions and it was an absolute failure. Sometime after I gave up that strategy, I read that geraniums and begonias could be pruned back, kept in their pots or containers, and brought inside for the winter. Two seasons ago I decided to give that option a try.

We have two second floor rooms that have south facing windows. They get lots of sun from mid morning to late afternoon on clear days. In the spring two years ago, I bought four geraniums to sit on the deck. They were typical plants in six inch pots. They grew well over the summer and I brought them into the house in late October. I pruned back some of the "branches" that had become gangly and removed leaves that had begun to yellow. I put them in the sunny window and watered them regularly. They thrived and grew. When spring arrived again, it was apparent that they needed to be re-potted. Last season outside they more than doubled in size and had just a huge number of flowers all season long. The picture above shows them in the window. It gives me great pleasure to care for them and doing so is a terrific mood lifter on dreary days. Some of the plants in the picture are begonias. I've had the same experience with them as with the geraniums.

Another green addition for my winter mood adjustment is the two ficus trees we have. We've had one for many years in the house and it summers outside with us on the deck. It came in for the winter, but I had it in a less than ideal spot and it suffered until spring. The other was in Lois's office at work. When she left there last year, she brought the ficus home with her. They winter over in a room with a large bay window which provides huge amounts of sun on good days. The one Lois brought home is too large, and its pot too heavy to be moved out for the summer but it has always been quite happy being inside.

So if you have the space available in a sunny room, give it a try...bring some of your garden inside with you for the winter!

Important Gardening Dates!

Daylight Savings Time starts March 13, 2011!

Spring Equinox - March 20, 2011 - Only 27 more days!

Winter Gardening Tasks and Diversions

The renowned author T.S. Eliot wrote in The Wasteland  "April is the cruelest month...".  I beg to differ, T.S., but I'm thinking February may be the cruelest month. As this month has progressed, we've had a fair amount of snow, plenty of cold, and the past two days have featured not only cold, but winds of up to 50 mph in the city! Yes, we had two days of temps in the low 70's. That was a very pleasant but short lived respite, however. But, in terms of winter gardening activities, there really is plenty to do even in February...after all, the groundhog did say "spring is right around the corner."

Early last week I had shoveled snow off of the asparagus bed area. This past Wednesday, February 16, was a gloriously warm and sunny day.  I spent time in the garden raking the asparagus beds (one is shown above) and removing the stubble from last year's crop and the late season "ferns" that grow when the asparagus are finished producing cutting size spears. With the snow gone, and the rubble removed to the compost heap, I laid down black plastic on either side of the bed and secured it with bricks. The black material will absorb the sunshine and heat the soil, which, in turn, will jump start the growing process. After that, I spread wood ashes from the fireplace over the bed. (If you don't have wood ash, an early treatment of your beds with bone meal or blood meal will serve the same purpose.) These simple tasks gave us our first asparagus on April 13 last year! We're hoping for the same this year. There are plenty of  mid-winter days when you can get out and start the clean-up chores to get a head start on this year's garden.

February (and January as well) is also a great time to peruse all the great garden catalogs that arrive in the mail. They are good source for many varieties of seeds and plants that you wont typically find at a supermarket or even a lot of the garden centers. We get at least one catalog from a five different companies. It's like paging through the best gardening daydream! If you don't currently receive any, just use a search engine to find "garden catalogs" and sign up for a few online. We decided to buy a pair of semi-dwarf blueberry bushes this year from a catalog. You can order in January or February, but they do not ship until the time is right in your "hardiness zone" for planting.

There are some garden centers that remain open all year, usually those that sell a large number of indoor "houseplants". They will be the first in your area to have a full line of garden seeds, tools, plant foods, etc.. I visit these spots in January and February just to browse and "feel good" being around all the new garden products for the coming spring. This year, I'm specifically looking for the perfect containers for the two new blueberry bushes.

Next Time:  Green plants to winter inside with you and keep your spirits up.

Introducing Our garden

Since this is my first post here, I'd like to lay the blame for this blog squarely at the feet of my niece Meg!  If you like it, I'll take the praise. If you don't, it's all Meg's fault!

Our home is a single family house in a city neighborhood of row homes. The main part of the structure was built in 1860 according to our deed. An addition was added in the late 1940's or early 1950's. The lot is typical of the city, measuring  22 feet wide and 150 feet deep.

When we bought our house, it had two double car garages with a large concrete/ macadam desert in between them. They were constructed of concrete block in the mid 1920's and had large, very heavy wooden doors.  The garages and lot consumed most of the space behind the house, leaving only 100 or so square feet of backyard.  We missed having any meaningful outdoor area with some garden space. In addition, the garages were built for Model T Fords and were inadequate for modern cars. The previous owner had rented out the garages for storage. After several years, we gave notice to the renter of the garages closest to the house to move out. Very conveniently, the garage had an entry door that opened to our small yard. Over that summer, I tore off the roof and removed the garage doors. I replaced the doors with an eight foot wall. We put brick in over the floor, built an 8' x 20' deck, and constructed boxes along 3 walls as raised flower beds. We called it the "courtyard".

Several years later, we decided that we really wanted a garden so we could grow fresh vegetables.....Lois is a vegetarian, after all. We had the second pair of garages vacated and erected a 6' high fence linking the two garages and macadam area into one large space. After demolishing the roof and doors, we had a blank slate to create our garden. We opened a doorway from the courtyard into the new area. Boxes for the beds were constructed using 6"x6" lumber. The lane next to the garden is too narrow for a truck to bring in the soil we needed, so we bought and carried in by hand 40 pound bags of topsoil. The total came to over 12,500 pounds of soil! Then many bags of pine bark mulch were spread to cover the walking areas. The drawing above shows you the layout as it is now. The photo shows how it appeared from the rear deck several years ago. Changes have occurred - for instance, near the wall, the black raspberries have been removed and the bed is now used for vegetables.

So much for the history lesson!  I'll be back soon with a view of what I've been doing in the garden in February, 2011!